Comprehending the Weakness of Russia`s Unions

Transcription

Comprehending the Weakness
of Russia 's Unions
STEPHEN CROWLEY
T here is a paradox concerning labor in Russia. Russia's main trade union federation, the Federation of Independent Trade Unions of Russia (FNPR), is
the largest social organization in Russia-in other words, the largest single component of civil society. And polis show that the demands that trade unions raise
are popular: people's greatest concerns are typically unemployment and delayed
wage payments.' Yet poli after poll also shows that the FNPR, and unions generally, are among the least respected public institutions in Russia. Put differently,
unions-the social organizations that in theory should be most capable of achieving the goals of most people-are among the least trusted institutions in society,
and as we shall see, Nave proven themselves largely incapable of mobilizing their
members in support of those goals.
This is a concern not only for workers seeking decent wages and trying to keep
their jobs, but also for broader goals such as building civil society and consolidating democracy. Historically and comparatively, labor has been a central variable in democratization, as a number of classical and contemporary works in
political sociology Nave emphasized.2 While others have argued that more classneutral concepts such as the strength of civil society better explain the success or
failure of democracy, trade unions are almost invariably at the top of the list of
those institutions said to make up civil society.3 And this should hardly be surprising: in virtually every industrialized society trade unions are among the very
largest, if not the largest, nongovennmental mass organizations.4
This article will focus on trade unions and will attempt to examine the weakness of Russia's unions and the obstacles that prevent them from becoming a more
active part of civil society. It will look first at the sorts of resources that unions
might hope to have lo be effective. Then it will briefly examine grievances that
working people in Russia have as a result of the transition, before turning lo
Stephen Crowley is an associate professor of politics at Oberlin College. The author dedicates this article to the late Leonid Gordon, a true gentleman as well as a scholar, whose
work continues through the influence he had en a wide number of people studying Russian society. The author is also grateful for the comments provided by Debra Javeline and
the anonymous reviewers for this journal.
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Comprehending the Weakness of Russia's Unions 231
strikes as one indication of the extent to which workers have addressed those
grievances. The article will then investigate the strengths and weaknesses of Russia's unions at the national and enteprise levels. Having demonstrated the weakness of Russian unions on those different levels, in the final section it will seek
to explain that weakness by comparing the Russian case with trade unions in other
postcommunist societies.
We might begin a discussion of Russian unionism by asking what sorts of
resources unions need to be effective. In a discussion of contemporary European
unions, Ross and Martin identify four types of resources most helpful to trade
unions. First are "market/bargaining" resources, which come from concessions
that unions get from employers through the actual or potential pressure they can
bring to bear. "These concessions-higher wages, job security, decent working
conditions, limitations on employer authority-are the heart of what unions
promise to supporters"5 They also need "identity resources," such as discourses
thatjustify union goals, place them in an ideological context, and encourage solidarity. Third, unions rely on "organizational resources," such as a legitimate leadership and secure funding. A crucial organizational resource is the potential for
rank-and-file mobilization: "The ability to `call out the troops,' or to threaten it
credibly, is vital." Finally, unions require political resources, which tell political
parties and governments that unions can support or sanction them in different
ways. Of these different avenues, "the most significant union political resources
in democracies are the votes of the unionists" To be sure, these union resources
represent an ideal type, and few unions in the present global climate posses them
in abundance. Nevertheless, an examination of such resources can be fruitful for
understanding the relative power of unions in the Russian context.
Let us review briefly the main grievances from which workers might seek
redress. From the perspective of workers in particular, the conditions in Russia
have been distressing: Between 1991, when Russia embarked on a move from
central planning to a market system, and 1999, the Russian economy experienced
a downturn worse than the Great Depression. By official statistics, Russia's GDP
declined by roughly 40 percent at its nadir; in terms of industrial output, Russia's
factories produced about half of the goods they did prior to the collapse of communism.ó A large portion of the population received a monetary income below
the officially defined "subsistence minimum," and many of those people were
"working poor." 7 Russia's workers have struggled with the chronic problem of
wage arrears: By late 1998 approximately two-thirds of Russian workers reponed overdue wages, with those affected reporting close to five months pay in
arrears on average.' Although the amount of wages held in arrears has subsequently declined, the value of wages that are paid has declined as well, since with
the financial crisis of August 1998 real wages plunged to less than half of their
level in 1991, the last year of the Soviet Union.9 While average wages have since
recovered, as of April 2002 they remained significantly below the level before the
1998 financial meltdown.
According to the Russian government's Human Rights Commissioner's
Report for 1999, "Russia is now among the bottom 20 percent of the world's
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nations in terms of the 33 indicators the United Nations uses to determine the
standard of living." The report also notes "the payment of wages in the form of
enterprise credit cards and vouchers is becoming a common practice, putting Russia in the same position as countries with the most primitive distribution systems."
The report charges that the chronic delays in the payment of wages are a violation of basic human rights. Further, "the working conditions of more than 43 percent of the laboring public are inconsistent with public health standards," and "the
rate of industrial accidents has risen sharply"1° Suffice to say, Russia's workers
have had considerable grievances over the past decade.
What has the response of workers and unions been? Not surprisingly, one
response has come in the form of strikes. According to official statistics, from
1992 to 1999 a total of 59,639 strikes were reported in Russia, for an average of
7,455 per year." The overall number of strikes seems large, but considering the
size of Russia's working population, the proportion of Russia's aggrieved workers that nave struck is fairly smali. Even by generous estimates the number of
strikers and protesters represents only 1 or 2 percent of all Russian workers, and
also an extraordinarily small percentage of workers owed wages.12
The puzzle deepens when we break down the figures by sector. The majority
of the strikes were led by teachers. More precisely, from 1992 to 1999 fully 91
percent of all strikes in Russia, or 54 percent and 56 percent when measured by
days not worked and workers involved respectively, took place in the education
sector. 13 As shown in figure 1, in most years, especially those with a large number of people out on strike, there have been more teachers on strike than workers
on strike in mining and manufacturing combined.14 Given that coal miners almost
certainly make up a large percentage of the strikers in the latter group, this means
that, since the start of the painful "transition," relatively few strikes have occurred
in industry outside of coal mining.15 In other words, outside of a few branches,
the ability of Russian unions to mobilize workers is limited at best.
The Weaknesses and Strengths of the FNPR
To make greater cense of the seeming incapacity of Russia' s unions, let us first
consider unions at the national level. Russia' s trade unions are dominated by the
Federation of Independent Trade Unions of Russia, the successor to the communist led union federation of the Soviet period. Alternative unions do exist-such
as VKT (All-Russian Confederation of Labor), KTR (Confederation of Labor of
Russia), Sotsprof, Zashchita Truda, as well as some branch unions that have left
the federation's umbrella-but they play a very limited role on the national level,
though alternative unions are occasionally quite influential at the level of the
enterprise, as we shall see.11 The FNPR'S chair, Mikhail Shmakov, was recently
re-elected for the third time. This was his first re-election that met with any opposition , but despite heavy criticism of his campaign by the media (from across the
political spectrum), in the end his sole remaining opponent gathered only eighty
of 746 votes.'? Shmakov and his allies interpreted this showing as an endorsement of his union stewardship, but opponents pointed to the fact that so few of
the top union leaders have changed over the years as a reason for their endorse-
Comprehending the Weakness of Russia's Unions
233
FIGURE 1. Numbers of Workers Involved in Strikes, by Sector, 1992-99
1,000,00',
900,000
800,00
700,000
Number 600,000
striker
Other
■ Mining/Mnftc
500,000---
8 Education
400,000
300, 000
200,00
100,00
1992
1993
1994
1995
1996
1997
1998
1999'
Source: Yearbook of Labour Statistics: 2001 (Geneva: International Labour Office, 2001).
ment of the status quo. Indeed, no more than 20 percent of the one hundred members of the federation's general council have changed over the last ten years.18
Although the FNPR is hardly the first union charged with ossification of its leadership, we should recall that during the last decade Russian unions have faced not
simply the typical challenges of unions everywhere, but a political and economic transformation of historic proportions.
One apparent strength of Russia's unions is the relative size of their membership, which, despite a dramatic decline from the Soviet days of compulsory trade
union membership, is, as one source puts it, "still high by comparison to most
pluralist societies whether industrialized or developing."9 Indeed, while
Shmakov puts the federation's membership at 38 million, down from 55-60 million in the first half of the 1990s, he can also claim that the FNPR remains "the
biggest non-governmental association in the Russian Federation"20 That alone, it
would seem, makes it a force to reckon with.
Yet the figures on trade union membership are not straightforward. First, they
are based on the self-reported figures of trade unions that have an interest in overstating them.21 Much trade union membership remains a rather passive holdover
from the Soviet era of compulsory membership, rather than reflecting any active
commitment on the part of members. For example, one small-scale survey of
Russian enterprises found a lot of passiveness regarding trade union membership,
with a number of respondents not knowing whether they were members or not,
and others simply being automatically enrolled when they began their jobs.22 This
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tenuous link to membership, when combined with union over-reporting, would
help explain why official membership figures are at odds with survey figures of
union membership. For example, the International Labor Organization, relying
on union figures, reported Russia's trade union membership in 1996 at 74.8 percent of the total labor force. Yet a nationwide sample conducted in 1995 found
the number of union members to be 54.7 percent (and the numbers have almost
certainly declined since).23 This 20 percentage point differential between official
and survey figures is a rather significant disparity, and even if the union figures
are technically more accurate in the sense that they reflect the number of duespaying members, the meaning of union membership is rather questionable when
a considerable proportion of
members won't take the sim"One surprising sign of the
ple step of rhetorically committing to union membership
ineffectiveness of Russia 's unions
in a survey.24
as an `organized interest' comes
Another apparent strength
from their lacé of impact on
of the FNPR, as successor to
elections."
the communist-era trade
unions, was its inheritance of
an enormous amount of property from the communist period, including revenue-generating concerns such as vacation resorts and other real estate. These do provide
considerable advantages, especially in comparison to the new trade unions that
do not have access to such resources. Yet, as the newspaper Izvestiya put it, "Being
one of the greatest landlords in Russia, the FNPR is not interested in confrontation with the state. The government may decide to privatize its property at any
moment"25 The Russian government has used this dependence successfully in the
past to keep the FNPR in line: the removal of such resources from union control
was explicitly threatened after the union sided with the defenders of the Russian
"White House" in October 1993, and in neighboring Belarus President Aleksandr Lukashenko continues to employ the threat of nationalizing union property in
his battle with unions.2ó Yet this threat may not be as effective as it once was.
While the properties continue to generate revenue for the union federation, critics charge that such assets have been squandered, either through privatization to
cronies or simply because the unions lost control of their privatized shares of the
properties and therefore the income that might be derived from them.27
One surprising sign of the ineffectiveness of Russia' s unions as an "organized
interest" comes from their lack of iimpact on elections. Given the large membership, however it is measured, of Russia's unions, they would appear relatively powerful, especially in relation to other componente of civil society and Russia's weak
party system. When the main union federation FNPR made a major push to enter
party politics in the December 1995 parliamentary elections, it did so by reaching
across class lines to form the misnamed Union of Labor with industrialists. Not
surprisingly, it was trounced in the polls, receiving only 1.59 percent of the party-
list vote.28 The experience was largely repeated in the 1999 Duma elections, when
the Union of Labor joined Luzhkov's centrist party, with little electoral success.29
The poor showing can in part be explained by the choice of alliance partners--industrial managers and owners, the very group from which unions might be expected to protect workers, and we will return to the significance of this alliance shortly. But the fact that an organization that in 1999 claimed a membership of over 40
million could deliver so few of the votes of its members, or even apparently of its
paid staff and activists, suggests a very weak link indeed between leaders and led 30
Moreover, with little proven ability to mobilize its members in the form of strikes,
and even less in the form of votes, the FNPR, despite its assets and largo membership, is largely devoid of the sanctions that unions can employ to ensure their
voices are heard by the govemment and employers. If a union can't deliver votes
or strikes, why should anyone listen to it?
One forum in which the federation has mobilized members has been its annual or semiannual "days of protest." Yet even the largest of these events, in 1997
and 1998, were largely ineffectual. For the 27 March 1997 national "day of
protest," even though a largo portion of its members had not been paid in months,
the FNPR leadership refused to put forth any political demands at all, merely calling for "a change in the course of reforms."31 The "day of protest" called by the
FNPR and opposition parties in October 1998-just months after the August collapso of the ruble led to a dramatic loss in real wages-was even weaker than
such protests in the past.32
Moreover, the economic demands that are aimed at the government in the
course of such protests are typically those that can be endorsed by both managers
and employees. As Linda Cook has argued, Russian labor protests "often function as a kind of regional lobbying or demand-making on the center. The FNPR's
national protests are commonly supported by regional authorities who help coordinate, provide security, and sometimos direct their personnel to participate-all
in the hopos of getting more payments from the center."33 Indeed, this rather limited ability to mobilize its membership is a major reason why the union has
focused its efforts not on battling employers for improved work conditions, but
on appealing in tandem with employers to the state for greater concessions and
sido payments to their industry and enterprise.34
This tendency of unions to press the state rather than managers for concessions would help explain which sectors are the ones that do engage in strikes in
Russia. As mentioned earlier, whereas few strikes take place in manufacturing, a
largo number of strikes occur in the public or "budget" sector, which includes
teachers, health caro workers and others paid (or until quite recently, often not
paid) directly from the state budget. Coal miners have also been largely part of
the state sector. According to some accounts, just as with the "days of protest,"
strikes in the Goal industry and budget sector "usually have the tacit support of
managers and local administrations seeking to extract resources from Moscow."35
This pattern of strikes in Russia also suggests that, despite the tendency of unions
to pressure the state rather than owners and managers, the Russian state has succeeded, through the process of privatization and abandonment of central plan-
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ning, in no longer being perceived by workers as directly responsible for their
well-being; or perhaps workers in the "privatized sector" simply are not sure
against whom to strike.36
Social Partnership, Russian-Style
Although, outside of a few sectors, unions have not succeeded in placing much
pressure on the state, they have att:empted to engage it through the process of
"social partnership" or tripartism, modeled roughly on the corporatist arrangements
of Western Europe.31 There are a number of difficulties with trying to graft such a
social institution, developed in a specific historical context, onto contemporary
Russian society. First, corporatist arrangements arose in Western Europe under
conditions of strong labor movements that provided powerful incentives for both
the state and capital to seek a social compromise. As we have seen, Russian trade
unions can provide few such incentives. Moreover, tripartism in the Russian context does not involve unions and industrialists looking to the state as a neutral mediator in settling their conflicts; rather, it provides a further avenue for unions to join
with managers along sectoral lines in appealing to the state for more resources.38
One of the more optimistic accounts of the development of social partnership in
Russia finds that "the tripartite comrission is frequently used by trade unions and
employers as an additional channel for placing pressure on the authorities " 39
Because unions typically place so little pressure on employers, the latter have
little incentive to organize themselves into associations for the purpose of negotiating national or branch-level agreements.40 Since there are typically no
employers' organizations for a given branch, branch unions fill this role, as do
industrial ministries. In other words, unions and branch ministries, in the absence
of an employers' organization, work out and sign agreements, which have little
meaning in terms of setting wages and work conditions, but typically aim at
extracting more resources from the rest of the state.41
Moreover, the significance of tripartite agreements is questionable. Juridically the tripartite commission is a consultative organ, whose decisions are passed
on to government bodies as recommendations. Its general agreements are typically declarative in form, and most of the concrete points contained in them
remain unfulfilled.42 One striking shortcoming of tripartite negotiations is the
level of the minimum wage in Russia. One would expect corporatist negotiations
to establish, if anything, an effective minimum wage-for a given industry, and
for society as a whole. And yet the minimum wage in Russia is notoriously low:
while cross-national wage comparisons are difficult, one comparative study found
that by November 2001 the minimum wage in Russia amounted to 6 cents an
hour, not only low for Eastern Europe, but lower than Vietnam, where the minimum wage was 20 cents an hour.43 By May 2002 the minimum wage was raised
by 50 percent to 450 rubles a month (about $14.50), but this was still a fraction
of the state-defined physiological subsistence minimum á4
Mikhail Kasyanov, first vice premier at the time, summed up the ineffectiveness of attempts at corporatist social partnerships by bluntly stating that "the government has not discussed this problem [of low wages] for nine years. The state
has, in fact, lost hold of the instrumenta to influence the level of earnings in the
non-state sector." He added that "such a mechanism as social partnership was not
used at all. °45
Russia 's New Labor Code
The mínimum wage is slated to be revised upward according to Russia's recently adopted labor code. Despite the FNPR's poor showing in elections, it has some
friends in parliament, and the FNPR engaged in considerable lobbying over the
proposed labor code.41 That the labor code was revised substantially from the government's initial proposal indicates that the union federation is not without some
strengths. However, the final changes, strongly backed by the FNPR, are illustrative of its relationship both with the government and with other unions.
The old labor code, although modified, was adopted in the Brezhnev era, and
the government and employers have for years derided provisions they viewed as
incompatible with a market economy, such as the trade unions' right to prevent
firings without union approval.41 According to Russian unions, the government's
proposed law would not only have made dismissals easier, it would also have
meant that the length of the workday and workweek could be extended to twelve
hours and fifty-six hours, respectively (to meet production deadlines), that temporary contracts could be used with virtually no restrictions, and that union influence would be limited in arcas of work discipline, shift working, holidays, norms,
and pay cuts.
Unions and their allies in the Duma mobilized considerable opposition to the
government's proposed labor code. And although the new code does include most
of the government's original goals, the FNPR can claim to have obtained important concessions.48 The obligation for employers to pay wages on time is strengthened, with specific penalties for those who fail to do so. The minimum wage is
to be set at the government-defined subsistence minimum.
All of Russia's unions- both the traditional and the alternative unions-mobilized against the government's draft, whereas Russia's employers, both the oligarchs and the RUIE (Russia's main industrial lobby), were in support of the
government; some have interpreted this as a sign of the formation of distinct
class interests in Russia.49 According to Minister of Economic Development
Mikhail Dmitriev, the reason it took a decade to revise the Soviet-era labor code
is that mistrust of Russian employers by workers is so great that the Russian population "constantly suspects that Russian employers will undoubtedly harm or
deceive workers•"50
As with all Russian legislation, the impact of the labor code depends on its
enforcement, and enforcement of the old labor code was often poor. Indeed,
regarding what the FNPR considered its biggest gain-raising the minimum wage
to subsistence level-the government has made clear it is in no hurry to bring this
about. According to Aleksandr Pochinok, minister of labor and social development, "the process will be long and will hardly be completed before 2009."51
Yet the most significant provision of the new labor code, especially for the
development of Russia's trade unions, may turn out to be another one altogether.
238 DEMOKRATIZATSIYA
Whereas all unions were opposed to the government's initial draft, traditional and
alternative unions were soon divided in a bitter struggle over a compromise
reached by the government and the FNPR, the compromise version eventually
passed by the Duma. Altemative unions criticized that version as weak, as it
allowed for longer working days and removed the union veto over dismissals;
they were most concerned about a provision stating that management must negotiate only with a union that commands a majority of the workforce. Specifically,
the provision states that in cases of enterprises with more than one union, the
unions should form a single organ representing the trade unions in proportion to
their membership. However, "if a single representative organ is not created within five calendar days after the start of collective negotiations, then representation
of all employees will be carried out by the trade union organization representing
more than half of the employees"S2 The provision is clearly a threat to the smaller, alternative trade unions, a point noted in commentary on the draft labor code
provided by the ILO, which argued that the majority trade union will have little
incentive to include smaller rival unions in the negotiation process and will effectively have a veto over the matter.53 With the exception of a few industrial branches whose unions have left the federation, FNPR unions are the dominant union
at virtually every enterprise with union representation; FNPR would have a virtual monopoly over collective negotiations throughout the country. By some
accounts, the prospect of FNPR union locals compromising with smaller alternative unions within an enterprise is almost nil: "the old and new unions have
been openly at war with one another," and "¡t is almost impossible to find cases
in which they have acted jointly to defend the interests of workers"54
In seeking this provision, the union federation is being consistent, lince "the
FNPR's maneuvering on the labor code reflects what it has been doing since 1993:
compromise [with the government] in order to solidify its position as the leading
organization in the labor movement "55 And in this compromise they were fully
joined by the government. Minister Pochinok displayed his enmity for the more
militant alternative unions in a discussion shortly after the Duma's second reading of the labor code. He argued (contrary to FNPR's claims that the fears of small
unions were unfounded) that small unions were right to be worried about the new
law, lince if they couldn't command a majority, "they will simply lose members
and lose influence." Overall, he argued, the law will lead to a decrease in the number of unions in Russia and the strengthening of those unions that survive.
And the best part of this, in my view, is that it won't be possible for five people to
get together, create a union organization, in which one hundredth, one-thousandth
of the labor collective terrorizes the enterprise.... And try under the existing legislation to do something with them.... This is an indication of what gaps there
were in the old legislation. So I'm very glad that the labor code is dismantling certain legal norms of trade unions.56
It is worth reflecting briefly on the potential impact of this provision of the
labor code. First, with this expression of hostility by the government toward alternative unions, combined with the warm relations between the government and the
FNPR, which have grown even better since their compromise on the labor code,
relations between the government and unions have come full circle: Alternative
unions such as the Independent Miners' Union were close allies of the Yeltsin
administration, and the FNPR at the time was seen as part of the communist opposition.57 Second, the impact on smaller alternative unions, although perhaps exaggerated, could be significant not only for the unions themselves but also for labor
relations generally. 1 will discuss the impact on small unions below, but to the
extent that they have "terrorized" labor collectives, they have done so when the
traditional unions failed to take action. Studies of union activity in Eastern Europe
suggest that union competition on the enterprise level is one of the best predictors of union assertiveness, and the experience of those branches in Russia where
unions do compete, as in the
coal industry, suggests that
union competition does indeed "Given the dire economic and social
radicalize the existing tradi- conditions in Russia, workers more
tional union.58 Hence, finas- than ever need what goods and
much as Russia's unions are
services the unions can provide."
already quiescent, with a
resulting negative impact on
the standard of living of the
working population, a further
weakening of Russia's small
alternative unions could have a
significant and chilling effect.59 For the government's part, the tendency, initiated under Yeltsin but increased under Putin, to treat the FNPR as the official and
single representative of Russia's working population, is perhaps reflective of
Putin's overall tendency to try to shape a civil society amenable to his wishes.
Last, although the FNPR's compromise on the labor code may have prevented passage of some of the more draconian measures in the government's proposal,
it is not clear that unions gained much else. As Minister of Labor Pochinok characterized the labor code, perhaps boastfully, "[T]he new code will really remove
unions from the economic sphere, they really will lose very serious possibilities,
which they had before," since they "will no longer have economic levers."60
Rossisskaya Gazeta reponed that "the authors of the labor code regarded as its
`pearl' the fact that it moves labor relations from the sphere of conflict to the
sphere of social partnership: `What is good for the enterprise is good for the
employee and the other way around. 61 However, this is precisely the charge that
critics make against Russia's unions-that they are unable to place much pressure at all on enterprise management, largely because they continue to see the
interests of workers and managers as largely the same.
Unions in the Workplace
Let us turn then to unions at the enterprise level, which remain all-important for
understanding the possibilities for unions as a political and social force in Russia. Unions in the communist period were considered part of management's team
and were essentially social welfare agencies. Both of those legacies continue to
have an impact on traditional unions in Russia. Typically, a worker goes to the
trade union not with a complaint about the boss but for a voucher to the plant's
vacation resort, for a place in summer camp for his kids, or perhaps for a TV set
being distributed by the plant's consumer network. Unions continue to serve as
the distributors of social services and in-kind benefits formerly funded by the state
and now, if they exist at all, provided by management.62 A 1995 survey found that
more than twice as many people turra to the union with questions about social
benefits as with questions about pay-and this in conditions of growing wage
arrears.63 In her in-depth study of one coal mine and its trade union, Ashwin
reported that "days spent observing events in the trade union office revealed that
union officers unquestionably spent most of their time dealing with sotskul'tbyt
[social, cultural, and daily life concerns] and related issues"64
Russia's workplace unions face a paradox: Given the unions' long and continued history of being an arm of management for the provision of goods and services, workers do not look to them to defend their rights. But given the dire economic and social conditions in Russia, workers more than ever need what goods
and services the unions can provide. Since it is managers who provide the
resources for such services, union leaders are effectively prevented from taking
a tough stance against management, which can easily cut off those resources, precipitating even greater loss of their standing with their members.
The tradition of unions' being allied with management also continues to shape
union behavior. In fact, at the factory level, managers in many cases long
remained trade union members, as they were in the communist era. According to
one survey of industrial enterprises, in 1995, 62 percent of managers agreed that
it was appropriate for managers and employees to belong to the same trade union,
and 67.7 percent of trade union chairs agreed, as did 51.4 percent of employees.
Yet three years later, in 1998, although the number of managers agreeing about
joint union membership dropped substantially to 47.2 percent, the share of trade
union chairs agreeing declined only to 60 percent, and the number of employees
agreeing remained essentially unch.anged (48.1 percent).65 Nor does the leadership of FNPR necessarily oppose this practice. According to a recent manual for
trade union activists, "In the difficult transition period to a civilized market economy ... it is very important for labor collectives to keep a thoughtful, attentive
director both in his position, and in the trade union"66
The survey cited aboye found that relatively few workers believe that unions
best defend their interests. When asked who defends the interests of workers, in
1995, 32.3 percent of employees said that the director of the enterprise did, while
another 19.5 percent chose their immediate supervisor, and only 10.2 percent
answered that the trade union defended them. In 1998, the number of employees
stating that the director defended their interests declined substantially to 12.1 percent, while the proportion answering that the trade union did so doubled to 21.3
percent. However, the proportion of respondents in 1998 saying that their immediate supervisor best defended their interest rose even more to 30.6 percent.67
Moreover, union leaders tend to see their interests as being the same as those
of managers, rather than in conflict with them. As one Russian sociologist phras-
es it, "[T]raditional unions unconditionally recognized the interests of the enterprise over the interests of the workers" and "the interests of the enterprise were
quite often not differentiated from the interests of the administration"68 As with
the FNPR on the national level, traditional unions at the firm seek aboye all to
preserve their organizational structure and to do so through dialogue with managers rather than through contentious collective action; they typically aim to prevent such actions as strikes that might challenge their authority. Gordon and
Klopov, close observers of Russia's unions, found some rather limited change in
unions' behavior over the last decade: The traditional unions moved from being
"pseudo-unions" of the communist period to "half-unions" today. In recent years
"they have begun, although still very timidly, to move away from their initial tactics, wherein they acted almost exclusively in alliance with enterprise directors"69
Often such change is forced on them by the workforce. In one case, workers at a
machine-building factory in Ivanovo struck while their trade union sat on the sideline. The chair of the regional trade union committee later argued that the union
learned a lesson: "The workers took matters into their own hands and won the
respect of management. They showed us that our old style of trade union work,
which was to act as partners of management and enforcers of social peace, is simply not suitable in the new market economy."70
The approach of the traditional unions would be vindicated if the tactic of
maintaining social peace and working with management delivered tangible benefits, but there is little evidence that it has. A number of studies have found that
unions had little if any influence on the setting of wages in industrial firms'71 or
even on the quite severe problem of wage arrears.72 Regarding collective contracts, the Ministry of Labor reported that in the years 1997-99, 146,000 enterprises had collective contracts, but according to Gordon and Klopov that represented only 15-20 percent of the enterprises where such contracts would be
appropriate. By the end of the 1990s, collective contracts were in place in only
34 percent of state and municipal enterprises, organizations, and institutions, and
only 8 percent of private enterprises.73 In one survey of Russian enterprises, 3040 percent of union leaders believed that such contracts do not serve to guarantee the interests of their collective, while more than half of the employees surveyed did not even know whether or not their enterprise had a collective contract.
Moreover, the authors of the survey conclude that "there are no known precedents" whereby the violation of a collective contract was sufficient to bring the
offending enterprise management to justice.74
The limited import of collective contracts is not surprising given that labor
law generally has been routinely flouted with impunity. The Human Rights
Report for 1999 describes widespread violations of labor law, including "more
frequent incidents of unlawful dismissals , mandatory leaves without pay, and
other violations of the Labor Code of the Russian Federation"75 With such widespread violations of the law, unions and workers in the mid- 1 990s turned increasingly to a legal strategy. Reflecting the rise in wage arrears, the number of wage
complaints handled by public courts rose from nineteen thousand in 1993 to 1.3
million in 1998-an almost seventy-fold increase.76 Yet such a legal strategy
242
DEMOKRATIZATSIYA
diverts scarce union resources into the courtroom rather than into organizing.
Moreover, such cases can take a long time to resolve, and even when decided in
the union's favor there is still the problem of enforcement. While Glose to twenty thousand illegally dismissed workers are reinstated in their jobs each year by
court order, some factory directora cllaim to have piles of those court orders stting
on their desk.77
Because of the ineffectiveness of trade unions in addressing the grievances of
their members, the protests that do erupt often do so spontaneously and display
a tremendous amount of anger and frustration.7S Examples include the miners'
"rail wars" of 1998, when they blockaded the Transiberian and other major railways; the hostage-taking of managers; the seizure of factories by work collectives contesting privatization; the hunger strikes and even the self-immolation of
those not getting paid. All of this suggests that despite the lack of organized collective action on a wide scale, Russian workplaces are ridden with conflict.79
The traditional unions themselves often carne out against such acts of protest,
as did most coal unions in the firsit days of the miners' "rail wars," and their
absence from the negotiations over the acts of protest further testified to their failure to represent their members.80 Partly because of union reticence, and partly
because Russia's laws make staging legal strikes quite difficult, many of these
enterprise-level strikes were wildcat actions.81
From the mid to the late 1990s, much strike action in Russia was connected
with the persistent and growing problem of wage arrears.82 More recently many
enterprise-leve] actions have switched their focus from wage arrears to the issue
of ownership.83 The entire process of privatization remains widely unpopular in
Russia, because of widespread corruption and the enrichment of a few oligarchs,
but also because of the ideological commitment of many Russians to such communist-era notions as the "labor collective" and workers' control.14 As a result,
particularly when plants are threatened with closure, workers in a number of cases
have entered into the struggle over control of the enterprise. Emblematic of these
conflicts has been the struggle over the Vyborg Pulp and Paper Mill outside St.
Petersburg. Privatization of the plant by a British firm, leading to fears of layoffs,
was contested by the plant's workers, who organized the seizure of the plant,
which in turn led to a bloody confrontation between workers and Interior Ministry troops. Similar actions were repeated elsewhere, and the case was seen as
an important one since it vividly displayed "the more general tendency of embittered labor relations of late 1990's."85
Alternative unions or strike committees elected for the purpose, and not the
traditional unions, almost always led these actions.81 The strike committees that
rose up during conflicts had practically no relations with trade unions in their
enterprise, with strikers arguing that the traditional unions had not been able to
defend anyone from firings or wage delays. Yet whereas small alternative unions
were fairly easy to establish, they faced strong opposition from both management
and existing unions. They also lacked any of the resources of the traditional
unions, and even in cases like Vyborg alternative unions had to seek assistance
from the branch and regional union hierarchies. Once a conflict ends, the alter-
native unions and strike committees tend to fall apart as quickly as they appeared.
In short, although traditional unions lack a willingness to fight, alternative unions
lack organization.87 And in the absence of some organizational connection
between these disparate conflicts, it is unlikely that such gains that workers might
win could reach beyond the local level.88
If nothing else, the extreme nature of many of the collective protests, combined with the fact that existing trade unions either observe the action from the
sidelines or actively seek to prevent them, demonstrates yet again the weak link
between Russia's unions and their membership. Still another indication comes
from survey data: as Zaslavsky summed it up, "In polis ranking public organizations by the level of popular mistrust they generate, Russian trade unions have
come to occupy the highest position."89 As 1 show in table 1, trust for unions as
reflected in surveys is indeed low, but there has been significant positive movement during the years 1994-2000.90
One would expect that, given class differences, workers would be more likely to evince support for unions than the general population. And yet in these lame
surveys of the Russian population, union support is weaker among workers than
it is among total survey respondents (see table 1). Not surprisingly, workers are
more likely to offer an opinion about unions, and at least in most years they are
more likely to say that unions "merit partial trust" Yet, depending on the year,
between 1 and 11 percent more workers than all survey respondents state that
TABLE 1. Responses to Surveys of Public Opinion of the Trustworthiness of
Russian Labor Unions , 1994-2000 (in percentages)
1994 all
1994 workers
1995 all
1995 workers
1996 all
1996 workers
1997 all
1997 workers
1998 all
1998 workers
1999 all
1999 workers
2000 all
2000 workers
Merit
no trust
Merit
parcial trust
Merit
full trust
Don't know/
no answer
45
48
43
44
41
43
33
42
36
47
37
39
31
37
17
17
22
37
21
27
26
24
22
20
28
37
27
28
8
9
6
4
8
10
11
8
11
10
10
14
10
9
30
26
29
15
30
20
30
26
31
23
25
10
32
26
Source: Leonid Gordon and Eduard Klopov, Poteri i obreteniya v Rossii devyanostykh:
Istoriko-sotsiolog ichekie ocherki ekonomicheskogo polozheniya narodnogo bol'shinstva, vol.
1 (Moskva: Editorial YRSS, 2000), citing VTsIOM data.
244
DEMOKRATIZATSIYA
unions "merit no trust at all" Nor does the relative distrust of unions by workers
appear to attenuate over time.
Meanwhile, those categorized as workers were more likely than others to say
that they are prepared to participate in acts of protest (see figure 2), actions that,
as we have seen, traditional unions are typically unwilling to take, except at the
most general level and with the support of management.91 Indeed, surveys, particularly in the last half of the 1990s, showed a majority of the population supporting such actions as strikers blocking major rail lines.92 Surveys in the mid1990s found between 20 and 30 percent stating a positive attitude toward the idea
of strikes in their enterprise, with 10-15 percent asserting their preparedness to
participate personally in a
strike. Extrapolating from the
survey data, Gordon and
"The union 's ties to its membership
Klopov argued that this would
appear extremely weak: the evidente
amount to between 5 and 8
suggests that the FNPR is si,rnply
million people, or 10-20 perunable to mobilize its vast member cent more than actually
ship either to strike or to vote ."
strike.93 In a survey of industrial enterprises, the proportion of employees who agreed
that a strike "is the only means
of struggle" doubled from
11.3 percent in 1995 to 22.2 percent in 1998, yet the proportion of enterprise
union leaders who agreed with the statement remained roughly the same for both
years, at 13 percent.94 Although stating one's willingness to strike and actually
striking are very different actions, this declared willingness to strike implies that
more assertive trade unions have a ready audience. Put differently, the evidence
suggests that it is not the passiveness of the Russian population that prevents
mobilization, but rather the recalcitrante or inability of representative organizations, specifically trade unions, to take action.
Explaining Labor's Weakness in Russia
We return to the paradox with which we began: trade unions are the largest single component of Russia's civil society, and the goals they proclaim are among
the most popular. And yet those same unions are among the least respected institutions in society. In terms of the union resources identified by Ross and Martin,
Russia's main union federation, the FNPR, wields some significant resources: it
not only has survived the first decade after communism but has solidified its position within Russia's labor movement. It has retained a sizeable membership, however defined, as well as tangible assets, and thus the union's funding appears
secure. The FNPR displays at least some political resources through its lobbying
in parliament, and with those it helped defeat some of the most draconian provisions of the government's proposed labor code. There has also been sorne upward
movement among survey respondents to trust in unions over the last decade.
Yet the evidence that the FNPR lacks the sorts of resources most basic to trade
Comprehending the Weakness of Russia's Unions
245
FIGURE 2. Percentage of Survey Respondents Prepared to Protest Fall in
Living Standards 1994-2000
40
35
30
25
0 Al¡ sur veysd
20
■ Workers survey,
10
5
0
1994
1995
1996
1997
1998
Source: Leonid Gordon and Eduard Klopov, Poteri i obreteniya v Rossii devyanostykh:
Istoriko-sotsiologichekie ocherki ekonomicheskogo polozheniya narodnogo bol'shinstva,
vol. 1 (Moskva: Editorial YRSS, 2000), citing VTsIOM data.
unions is rather stunning.95 There is little lo suggest that the unions can provide
anything like "market/bargaining resources," whether in the form of decent wages,
work conditions, or limits lo employer authority-the very essence of what unions
promise to their members.96 Moreover, the union's ties lo its membership appear
extremely weak: the evidence suggests that the FNPR is simply unable to mobilize its vast membership either to strike or to vote. Nor is this problem confined
to relations to the FNPR hierarchy in Moscow: survey and other evidence finds
very weak links between workers and traditional unions at enterprise level. In
short, while the FNPR has displayed organizational continuity over a tumultuous
decade and has approached a near-monopoly on worker representation, its connection with the vast membership it claims to represent is quite limited.
What explains the weakness of Russia's unions? A number of different explanations have been proposed.97 Recent changes in Russia's economic situation
and, more important, comparison with the situation in Eastern Europe, can help
us sort out some of the explanations and thus the prospects for change. Let us
consider each in turn.
One explanation for the relative lack of collective action on the part of Russian workers has been the general economic situation: it is difficult to strike if
factories are making little to begin with. That sort of explanation is consistent
with the economic theory of strikes-that strikes take place not when labor is
weak, but when it is strong, such as in conditions of low unemployment.98 Fol-
246
DEMOKRATIZATSIYA
FIGURE 3: Number of Strikes in Russia, 1992-2001
18000
16000
14000
12000'.__....
10000...
8000
6000
4000
2000
0
1992
1993
1994
1995
1996
1997
1998
1999
2000
2001
Source: Yearbook of Labour Statistics: 2001 (Geneva: International Labour Office, 2001).
lowing this reasoning, we would expect to see some increase in labor activity with
the beginning of economic recovery in Russia. Yet just the opposite is the case;
with a decline in wage arrears and a rice in industrial production and some
improvement in real wages, the number of strikes in Russia has declined rather
dramatically. As shown in figure 3, while there were seventeen thousand strikes
in 1997, eleven thousand in 1998, and seven thousand in 1999, the number of
strikes dropped to eight hundred in 2000 and less than three hundred in the first
vine months of 2001. (However, measures of strike volume, such as the number
of days not worked, show a much less dramatic drop-off in strike activity.)99
If the "crisis" in the Russian economy is indeed over, does this mean that the
main grievances of workers have disappeared? As we have seen, Russian workers have been burdened with grievances for some time, and the end of the Russian depression will not remove most of these anytime soon. As economic change
continues, workers are likely to face increasingly open unemployment, as
opposed to unemployment hidden in the form of wage arrears and underemployment. If anything, the Russian case underscores the observation that grievances
do not easily lead to collective action.
Some explanations see union weakness as a reflection of Russia's troubled
transition, which is nevertheless making a certain evolutionary progress toward
"normality."00 Others argue that capitalist class relations have still not fully taken
shape within the enterprise, that thee basic lines of conflict still tend to be between
the enterprise and its external environment, and that workers remain dependent
on paternalistic enterprises.101 Still others have argued that workers in the Rus-
Comprehending the Weakness of Russia 's Unions 247
sian context find it difficult to assign blame for such problems as wage arrears,102
or they are hindered from acting collectively by labor market segmentation, as
more highly skilled workers exit failing enterprises for the informal economy or
new private firms.103
Each of these explanations has considerable plausibility in the Russian context. Each of them, some more explicitly than others, also puts considerable
weight on the notion of legacies from the communist period in explaining the
position of Russian workers. Indeed, perhaps nowhere is the impact of the communist legacy more evident than when considering the issue of labor and trade
unions. After all, the old regime claimed to rule on behalf of the working class,
and communist-led trade unions became the largest organizations in society with
the end of those regimes. However, the notion of legacy, at least in the ways that
the argument has typically been applied to Russia, implies that the impact of the
past will attenuate over time, as the transition progresses, as capitalist class relations solidify, and as old habits and institutions are transformed or die out.
And yet when we look across postcommunist societies, we find that when
measured by a variety of quantitative and qualitative indicators, unions are quite
weak throughout the postcommunist space.104 This is true despite wide variations
in a number of other relative factors that could reasonably be considered to affect
labor relations: levels of economic growth and unemployment, political opportunities, union configurations, candidacy for EU membership, hardness of budget
constraints, firmness of property rights, and so on. The phenomenon calls into
question explanations for union weakness developed specifically in the Russian
context. For example, in the case of East and Central Europe, several countries
have achieved sustained economic growth, capitalist class relations appear much
clearer, and the opportunity for workers and managers to appeal to the state is
considerably less, yet unions remain quite weak. Turnover, and hence exit, are
lower than in the Russian case. And the difficulty of assigning blame, although
plausible when the problem is wage arrears, is rather less convincing when the
problems are the more familiar ones of unemployment and low wages. Certainly the impact of institutional and ideological legacies from the communist period does help explain the phenomenon; such legacies are about the only things
these countries still have in common. And yet, for a variety of historical reasons,
communist legacies would appear to be less deep in Eastern Europe than in the
former Soviet Union.
Rather than dealing with the continued impact of legacies per se, labor unions
throughout postcommunist societies were faced with the introduction of capitalism and an opening to the global "post-Fordist" economy from an initial position
of weakness stemming from communist-era legacies; even as those legacies
appear to attenuate, unions display little increased strength as social and political
actors.105 They may yet reconstitute themselves in the future as strong labor
movements, but there is little evidence at present to suggest that this will happen.
In this, unions are similar to other components of postcommunist civil societies,
which remain quite weak comparatively.106 The experience of Eastern Europe is
the biggest reason for doubting that Russia's unions, like the transition itself, will
evolve in a linear fashion, even if a long and troubled one. If anything, as the
economy becomes less state-centered and more private, and as the strategies and
the mentalities of working people become more individualized and less collectively oriented, the possibility for a strengthened workers' movement in Russia
may decline even further.
NOTES
1. For example, a September 1998 poli by the Institute of the Sociology of Parliamentarianism found that to the question of what problems in your personal life anger you
the most, 60 percent answered wage arrears and 55 percent answered low wages. Izvestiya,
23 September 1998.
2. Ruth Berins Collier, Paths Toward Democracy: The Working Class and Elites in
Western Europe and South America (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1999);
Dietrich Rueschemeyer, Evlyne Huber 5tephens, and John D. Stephens, Capitalist Development and Democracy (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1992); Gregory Luebbert,
"Social Foundations of Political Order in Interwar Europe," World Politics 39, no. 4
(1987); T. H. Marshall, Citizenship and Social Class (Cambridge: Cambridge University
Press, 1950); Reinhard Bendix, Nation-Building and Citizenship (New York: John Wiley
and Sons, 1964).
3. Ertman, for example, criticizes the emphasis placed on the working class, yet in the
examples of "associational life" that he suggests are the central variables explaining
democratization, labor unions figure quite prominently. Thomas Ertman, "Democracy and
Dictatorship in Interwar Western Europe Revisted," World Politics 50 (1998): 475-505.
4. The only obvious rival would be the Catholic Church in societies where that religion dominates.
5. George Ross and Andrew Martin, "European Unions Face the Millennium," in The
Brave New World of European Labor, ed. Andrew Martin and George Ross (New York:
Berghahn, 1999), 3.
6. Although official figures may fail to capture informal economic activity, other measures put the decline at only slightly lower levels. See Branko Milanovic, Income, Inequality, and Poverty during the Transitionfrom Planned to Market Economy (Washington, DC:
World Bank, 1998).
7. In 2000 the proportion of the population below the subsistence minimum was close
to 40 percent, though by the third quarter of 2001 that number had dropped to 27 percent.
Itar-Tass, 2 February 2002. Beyond the official statistics, a poll carried out by the National Institute for Social and Regional Problems revealed that seven Russians out of ten considered themselves poor, only 14 percent said that they could pay for necessary medical
treatment, and just 8 percent took a holiday in 1999. President Vladimir Putin conceded that
Russia occupied seventy-first place in world rankings for its people's standard of living.
Agence France Presse, 28 February 2000. On the large number of "working poor" in Russia and other post-communist societies, see Milanovic, Income, Inequality, and Poverty.
8. These figures come from the Russian Longitudinal Monitoring Survey, as analyzed
in John Earle and Klara Sabirianova, "Equilibrium Wage Arrears: A Theoretical and
Empirical Analysis of Institutional Lock-In," unpublished paper, Stockholm Institute of
Transition Economics and East European Economies, Stockholm, 2000. Often workers
would not get paid in rubles, but would get paid in kind-in products the enterprises had
obtained by barter, or consumer goods that the plant produced, including matches, bras,
coffins, and in one case, manure. Izvestiya, 26 November 1999, as reported in "Russia
Campaign: Strikes and Protests," 18 May 2000, <http://www.icem.org/campaigns/nopay_cc/protests-0001 a.html>.
9. "The 1999 Report of RF Human Rights Commissioner," Rossiyskaya Gazeta, 4
April 2000. According to another measure, in March 1999, Russia's average hourly labor
costs, including benefits, were 56 cents an hour-less than one-half of the labor costs in
Guatemala. New York Times, 18 March 1999.
10. On the rise of accidents and unsafe work conditions, see A. M. Katsva, "Kollektivnye Deistviya v konste 90-kh godov: Radikalizatsiya metodov stachechnoi bor'by," in
Trudovie otnosheniya i kollektivnye deistviya v sovremenoi Rossii, ed. A. M. Katsva et al.
(Moskva: Editorial URSS, 1999).
11. Yearbook of Labour Statistics: 2000 (Geneva: International Labour Office, 2000).
Some argue that such official statistics only record officially recognized strikes and thus
understate the real figure. Petr Bizyukov, "Al'ternativnye Profsoyuzy na Puti Osvoyeniya
Sotsial'nogo Prostranstva," Sostiologicheskiye Issledovaniya 5 (2000): 34 n. 1. However,
survey data suggests that the official statistics are close to the mark. Debra Javeline, Protest
and the Politics of Blame: The Russian Response to Unpaid Wages (Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press, forthcoming).
12. Javeline, Protest and the Politics of Blame.
13. Yearbook of Labour Statistics. The much larger proportion of the number of strikes
by teachers, as opposed to days not worked or workers involved, is largely explained by
the relatively small size of the teachers' "collectives." See Katsva, "Kollektivnye
Deistviya."
14. Given that there are fewer teachers than mining and manufacturing workers, from 1992
to 1999 an average of 217 per thousand teachers were on strike each year, while the comparable figure for mining and manufacturing was sixty-one. Yearbook of Labour Statistics.
15. On the exceptional nature of Russia's coal miners, see Stephen Crowley, Hot Coal,
Cold Steel (Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press, 1997).
16. Alternative unions occupy only two out of thirty seats on the Russian Tripartite
Commission. Those seats are occupied by VTK and KTR, each claiming a membership of
1.2 million. Vadim Borisov, "Sotsial'noe partnersvo v Rossii: Spetsifika ili podmena ponyatii ," Sostiologicheskiye Issledovaniya 5 (2000): 57.
17. Nezavisimaya Gazeta, 10 October 2001; Kommersant, 30 November 2001, as translated by the Current Digest of the Post-Soviet Press.
18. Nezavisimaya Gazeta, 17 October 2001.
19. Calvin Chen and Rudra Sil, "The Transformation of Industrial Relations in Russia
and China: Diverging Convergences?" paper presented at the Annual Meeting of theAmerican Political Science Association, San Francisco, 12 September 2001.
20. "Press Conference with Independent Trade Unions Federation Chairman Mikhail
Shmakov," Official Kremlin International News Broadcast, Federal News Service, 3
December 2001; Leonid Gordon and Eduard Klopov, Poteri i obreteniya v Rossii
devyanostykh: Istoriko-sotsiologichekie ocherki ekonomicheskogo polozheniya narodnogo bol'shinstva, vol. 1 (Moskva: Editorial YRSS, 2000), 218.
21. Marina Karelina, "Tendentsii Izmeneniya Chislennosti Professional'nykh Soyuzov," Sostiologicheskiye Issledovaniya 5 (2000): 41-43.
22. Ibid., 48.
23. World Labor Report, 1997-1998 (Geneva: International Labour Office, 1997);
Ronald Ingelhart et al., World Values Surveys and European Values Surveys, 1995-1997
(computer file), Inter-University Consortium for Political and Social Research version
(Ann Arbor, MI: Institute for Social Research, 2000). For a similar disparity between union
figures and survey data, see Gordon and Klopov, Poteri i obreteniya, 203.
24. The newspaper Kommersant cited a recent survey that put FNPR membership at 7
million. Kommersant, 30 November 2001.
25. Izvestiya, 9 April 1998; Izvestiya, 24 August 1999.
26. "Belarus Government Prepares to Nationalize Trade Union Property," Novie
Izvestiya, 12 April 2001, as translated by the Current Digest of the Post-Soviet Press.
27. Nezavisimaya Gazeta claims that the property FNPR inherited was worth 6-7 billion dollars, but on what basis this valuation is made is unclear. In the early 1990s an agreement was reached with regional union federations over distribution of the property, with
21 percent going to the national federation and 79 percent going to regional organizations.
The newspaper cites a report by a deputy to Shmakov that states that the FNPR lost control of a large number of privatized assets, including almost one in four enterprises created from tourist assets (out of a total of 730 ). Nezavisimaya Gazeta, 17 October 2001.
28. Boris Kagarlitsky, "Russian Trade Unions and the 1995 Elections," Labour Focus
on Eastern Europe 52 (autumn 1995): 64-69. This was less than the votes recieved by Viktor Anpilov's Komunisty-Trudovaya Rossiya-za Sovetskii Soyuz. Simon Clarke,
"Labour in Post-Soviet Russia," paper presented to the ICCEES World Congress, Tampere, Finland, August 2000.
29. Ibid.
30. Izvestiva, 23 October 2001.
31. Kommersant-Daily, 29 March 1997; Moscow News, 30 March-6 April 1997.
32. The FNPR did manage to up the rhetoric from "a change in the course of reforms"
to "Yeltsin resign," but with Yeltsin's popularity rating in low single digits, in so doing
they were not exactly going out on a limb. Nezavisimaya Gazeta, 8 October 1998; Segodnya, 9 October 1998.
33. Linda J. Cook, "Trade Unions, Management, and the State in Contemporary Russia," in Business and the State in Contemporary Russia, ed. Peter Rutland (Boulder, CO:
Westview, 2001), 165; Sarah Ashwin, Russian Workers: The Anatomy qf Patience (Manchester, UK: Manchester University Press, 1999), 86. See the discussion of these "mass
acts" and their slogans in A. M. Katsva, "Kollektivnye Deistviya."
34. Cook, "Trade Unions"; Clarke, "Labour." As Zaslavsky puts it, this phenomenon
"coincides with the Soviet propaganda cliché asserting a presumed commonality of interests between workers and managers under socialism." Victor Zaslavsky, "The Russian
Working Class in Times of Transition," in Russia in the New Century: Stability or Disorder? ed. Victoria Bonnell and George Breslauer (Boulder, CO: Westview, 2001), 215.
35. Clarke, "Labour," 1. Interestingly., Article 409 of the new labor code forbids employers from organizing or participating in strikes. "Trudovoi Kodeks Rossiiskoi Federatsii,"
prinyat Gosydarstvennoi Dumoi, 21 December 2001, <http://www.fnpr.ru/tk/tk-final.txt>.
36. This is the central argument in Javeline, Protest and the Politics of Blame. On this
point see also Paul T. Christensen, "Why Russia Lacks a Labor Movement," Transitions,
December 1997; Stephen Crowley, "Liberal Transformation: Labor and the Russian State,"
in Building the Russian State, ed. Valerie Sperling (Boulder, CO: Westview, 2000).
37. Tripartism refers to centralized and formal negotiations between representatives of
labor, employers, and the state. For an earlier critical assessment of Russian tripartism, see
Walter Connor, Tattered Banners: Labor, Conflict and Corporatism in Postcommunist Russia (Boulder, CO: Westview, 1996).
38. Gordon and Klopov note that tra.de union representatives to the tripartite commission often criticize the government side about its socioeconomic policy for seeking to limit
the list of questions under discussion and for trying to get the commission to support positions already adopted unilaterally by the government. They do not mention union criticism
of the employers. Gordon and Klopov, Poteri i obreteniya.
39. Ibid., 244, 241.
40. Unions themselves at times directly push employers to form associations. However, especially at the regional level, employers often use the negotiations to form a regional lobby to negotiate over economic issues with the regional administration, with unions
playing a more minor role in the discussions. Borisov, "Sotsial'noe partnerstvo," 60-61.
41. Gordon and Klopov, Poteri i obreteniya, 244-45. Clarke notes, "The development
of tripartite structures has correspondingly accelerated the fragmentation of the trade union
movement as branch unions have been oriented more to the particular interests of their
branch (and regional organisations to the interests of their regions or the dominant branches in their regions) than to the common interests of their members as workers." Clarke,
"Labour," 4. On the dearth of employers' associations with whom labor might negotiate,
see Viktor Komarovsky and Ye. Sadovaya, "Ob'edineniya rabotodatelei v sisteme sot-
sialnogo partnerstva: opit razbitikh stran i Rossii," Mirovaya Ekonomika i Mezhdunarodnie Otnosheniya 5 (1997).
42. Borisov, "Sotsial'noe partnerstvo," 57; Gordon and Klopov, Poteri i obreteniya, 244.
They add hopefully that nevertheless the "form" of social partnership is present, perhaps
to be filled with meaningful content in the future.
43. See the discussion of Worldwide Benefit and Employment Guidelines 2001/2002,
prepared by W. M. Mercer Consulting, <http://www.wmmercer.com/global/english/
resource/re source_news_topic_ 110501.htm>.
44. Itar-Tass, 1 May 2002.
45. Ibid. According to one union negotiator, the government has refused to put almost
any figures or norms into the agreements. Borisov, "Sotsial'noe partnerstvo," 57 n. 3.
46. Clarke, "Labour."
47. "Under the labor code, firms were required to offer redundant workers alternative
employment if possible, to secure trade union approval for redundancies, to notify the
[State Employment Servicel, and to provide up to three months severance pay." These provisions provided incentives for employers to avoid layoffs or to push workers to quit voluntarily. Vladimir Gimpelson and Douglas Lippoldt, The Russian Labour Market:
Between Transition and Turmoil (Lanham, MD: Rowman and Littlefield, 2001), 11;
Bizyukov, "Al'ternativnie profsoyuzi," 53.
48. Chen and Sil, "Transformation," 16.
49. Ibid., 17.
50. "Stenogramma osnovnykh vystuplenii na seminare `Reforma trugodovo zakonodatel'stva: Novyi Trudovoi Kodeks,- Moskovskii Tsentr Karnegi, 11 November 2001,
<http://earnegie.ru/russian/pr/2001/infOl-122-steno.htm>.
51. Ibid. One of the very last provisions of the labor code states that when the higher
minimum wage will go into effect is "to be determined by federal law."
52. In cases where no union has a majority, union representation is to be selected at a
meeting of the labor collective by a process of secret voting, when a single union will be
selected as the bargaining agent. However, this provision may also hurt FNPR unions,
since with its declining membership it may in many cases be forced through this additional
hurdle before being able to begin negotiating for a collective contract. "Trudovoi Kodeks."
53. MOT, "Otvet na zaproc VTK i KTR v zvyzi c proektom Trudogo Kodeksa Rossiskoi
Federatsii," accessed 8 January 2002, <http://www.vkt.org.ru/news.htm>.
54. Bizyukov, "Al'ternativnie profsoyuzi," 30. However, Gordon and Klopov point out
that rival coal unions have cooperated at mine-level, and that a study in Taganrog found a
"division of labor" between traditional and alternative unions, where the former handied
"distributive functions" and the Iatter placed pressure on management. Such alternative
unions in Taganrog were few, though. Gordon and Klopov, Poteri i obreteniya.
55. Chen and Sil, "Transformation," 17. They add that the FNPR's strategy of moderation "may not have resulted in immediate short-term gains," but it has "enabled the FNPR
to maintain its position within organized labor." Ibid., 13 (original emphasis). Kagarlitsky
puts it more sharply still: "The crux of the deal was very simple: The FNPR would give
its consent to limiting the rights of hired employees, and in return the law would effectively consolidate its monopoly position." Moscow Times, 18 December 2001.
56. "Stenogramma osnovnikh vystuplenii."
57. According to Kommersant, Shmakov's candidacy was "endorsed" by Putin, who in
his speech to the FNPR conference praised the union for its constructive approach to the
new labor code. Kommersant, 30 November 2001.
58. Gregorz Ekiert and Jan Kubik, Rebellious Civil Society: Popular Protest and Democratic Consolidation in Poland, 1989-1993 (Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press,
1999); Graeme Robertson, "The Madding Crowd: Politics and Protest in New Democracies," paper presented at the Annual Meeting of the American Political Science Association, San Francisco, September 2001.
59. Javeline argues quite compellingly that although Russian workers have not erupted
in the expected "social explosion," their very quiescence in the current conditions has
rather directly contributed to "increased rates of alcoholism, suicide, malnutrition, depression, and mortality." Debra Javeline, "Labor Challenges and the Problem of Quiescence,"
in Russia's Policy Challenges in the 21st Century, ed. Stephen Wegren (Armonk, NY: M.
E. Sharpe, forthcoming).
60. Pochinok's statements were concluded by the comment that "nevertheless the role
of trade unions will grow," though he did not specify how, after losing such influence, this
would be so. In the words of a BBC repon, "Analysts say that, compared to some West
European countries, Russia now has very flexible labour laws, closer to those in Britain
than Sweden or France." BBC, "Capitalist Labour Laws Come to Russia," 1 February
2002, from Johnson's Russia List.
61. Rossisskaya Gazeta, 20 December 2001.
62. Even President Putin joined the denunciation of unions along these lines. In what was
billed as his "State of the Nation" address, besides accusing the unions of "bureaucratization." he argued, "In the new conditions the trade unions should not be taking upon thernselves state functions in the social sphere. What the people of Russia need is not just another middleman for distributing social benefits, but professional monitoring to see that labor
contracts are just and their conditions properly observed.' Putin's remarks, while on target,
are certainly ironic: some ten years after Russian trade unions declared themselves "independent," they are being lectured by the head of state on how to defend workers' interests.
"Russian President's Address to Federal Assembly," BBC Monitoring, 8 July 2000.
63. T. Chetvernina, P. Smirnov, and N. Dunaeva, "Mesto profsoyuza na predpriyatii,"
Voprosi Ekonomiki 6 (1995); J. E. M. Thirkell, K. Petkov, and S. A Vickerstaff, The Transformation of Labour Relations: Restructuring and Privatization in Eastern Europe and
Russia (Oxford: Oxford University Press., 1998), 106.
64. Ashwin, Russian Workers, 90. She also found that even this "militant" trade union
had difficulty separating its interests from those of management.
65. T. Ya. Chetvernina et al., Sotsial'no-trudovye otnosheniya na predpriyatiyakh: Konflikt interesov ili poick soglasiya? (Moskva: Institut Ekonomiki RAN, 1998). Although the
exact nature of the sample is unclear, the persistence over time appears significant, and
similar findings have been reported by other surveys. For example, in a survey of trade
union members and activists, only one-sixth believed that managers should belong to
unions of entrepreneurs rather than trade unions. The remainder believed that, in the
authors' words, "in Russia the time has not come for an organized demarcation with the
administration," because "close joint work is needed between the administration and the
trade union" to solve a variety of problems such as the payment of wages. S. Shalaev et
al., Novoe v motivatsii profsoyuznogo chlenstva (Moscow: Nauchnyi tsentr profsoyuzov,
2000), 20
66. They advise further that managers who abuse the rights of workers can then be
kicked out of the trade union for violating organizational discipline! Shalaev et al., Novoe
v motivatsii profsoyuznogo chlenstva, 20-2 1.
67. Chetvernina et al., Sotsial'no-trudov_ye. In the 1998 survey an additional 24.1 percent stated that no one defended the interests of workers.
68. Bizyukov, "Al'ternativnye Profsoyuzy," 31. For similar statements, see Karelina,
"Tendentsii Izmeneniya"; Irina Kozina, "Profsoyuzy v kollektivnykh trudovykh konfliktakh," Sostiologicheskiye Issledovaniya 5 (2000): 49-56.
69. Gordon and Klopov, Poteri i obreteniya, 216.
70. Fred Weir, Christian Science Monitor, 6 September 2001.
71. Gimpelson and Lippoldt found that "employers dominated the wage-setting
process" and that unions "offered only weak bargaining power for rank-and-file employees," and in their case studies of four enterprises "local trade union activity was rather pro
forma and ineffective." The Russian Labour Market, 13, 84-85. Commander and McHale
reported a random and representative sample of Russian firms from 1994 that "indicate[d]
quite unambiguously the general absenice not only of industrial action but also of the weak
bargaining strength of workers. On the issue of wage setting, over two-thirds of respondents cited worker demands as unimportant." Simon Commander and J. McHale, "Unemployment and the Labor Market in Transition: A Review of Experience in East Europe and
Russia," in Economic Transition in Russia and the New States of Eurasia, ed. Bartolmiej
Kaminiski (Armonk, NY: M. E. Sharpe, 1996), 304. Guy Standing reported in an extensive survey of Russian enterprises that the presence or absence of unions appeared to have
little to no impact on wage levels in Russian workplaces. Russian Unemployment and
Enterprise Restructuring (New York: St. Martin's, 1996), 210-11.
72. Padma Desai and Todd Idson, Work without Wages: Russia's Nonpayment Crisis
(Cambridge: MIT Press, 2000), ch. 12. They also find little evidence that strikes are effective in addressing wage arrears, but Chis may be the result of their data, which is not broken down by sector, since payoffs to end strikes are usually very selective.
73. Gordon and Klopov, Poteri i obreteniya, 232. In smaller firms, where many hopes
for future economic growth are placed, the problem is not only the lack of collective contracts, but also the lack of unions. According to the chair of the Sverdlovsk regional union
committee, there are more than fifty thousand small and medium enterprises in the region,
but unions have been created in only 850 of them. Karelina, "Tendensii izmeneniya," 44.
74. Chetvernina et al., Sotsial'no-trudovye, 37
75. "The 1999 Report of RF Human Rights Commissioner," Rossiyskaya Gazeta, 4
April 2000.
76. Ibid. In 1997, 6 percent of the total Russian workforce sought redress for the nonpayment of wages through the courts. The FNPR claims to have won 96 percent of the
suits it brought in 1997 and 1998. Izvestiya, 6 January 1999; Christensen, "Why Russia
Lacks a Labor Movement"; S. Shalaev et al., Novoe v motivatsii.
77. Human Rights Report; Russia and Commonwealth Business Law Report, 18
November 1998. Bizyukov sees court action as the decisive work of alternative trade
unions, whereas Kozina sees the legal strategy as a reflection of union weakness and inability to lead strikes. Bizyukov, "Al'ternativnye Profsoyuzy"; Kozina, "Profsoyuzy v kollektivnykh."
78. Kozina, "Profsoyuzy v kollektivnykh," 50.
79. Katsva, "Kollekitivnye deistviya"
80. Bizyukov, "Al'ternativnye Profsoyuzy."
81. For further discussion of the strike law, see Crowley, "Liberal Transformation,"
163-64. The new labor code does little to remove the obstacles to legal strikes under the
previous legislation and would make workers and unions Hable for economic damages
stemming from illegal strikes.
82. Desai and Idson (Work without Wages) find a positive correlation between the leve)
of wage arrears and strikes, as Katsva does between arrears and protest action ("Kollekitivnye deistviya"), but see Javeline, Protest and the Politics of Blame.
83. Christensen, "After Communism."
84. On the continued unpopularity of privatization, see Christensen, "After Communism."Ashwin places much emphasis on the notion of the "labor collective" as a source of
unity between workers and managers and as an explanation for workers' "patience" (Ashwin, Russian Workers). Yet it would seem that the continued viability of the idea of the
collective entails certain obligations on the part of management and therefore limits to
workers' patience.
85. Gordon and Klopov, Poteri i obreteniya, 226-27; Segodnya, 29 December 1999;
Nezavisimaya Gazeta, 27 October 1999.
86. At times these committees have simply been named "committee for leading protest
actions." Bizyukov, "Al'ternativnye Profsoyuzy."
87. Bizyukov, "Al'ternativnye Profsoyuzy." However, given that these alternative unions
do not typically seek to negotiate collective agreements, but rather to defend workers by
means of protests, court actions, and strikes, it is not clear that the new labor code and its
restrictions on the participation of smaller unions in contract negotiations will have a deci-
sive impact on their continued existence . On the other hand, the smaller unions will never
solve the dilemma of lack of organization if they are unable to consistently deliver tangible benefits , which traditionally come from collective negotiations.
88. Clarke argues that such actions are "not anti -capitalist mobilisations , but are driven
by the search for a true social partner, the good capitalist who pays wages ," and hence they
differ in neither content nor form from the FNPR ' s attempts at social partnership
("Labour," 14, 16). Although the first statement may well be true, and although these workers are certainly lacking an alternative ideology or discourse , with the prospect of an alternative to capitalism nowhere on the horizon , and in conditions of extreme impoverishment
of many workers , it is surely a mistake to fault workers for seeking to have their wages
paid and to see such actions as similar to those of the more compliant trade unions that
protest little, if at all.
89. Zaslavsky, "The Working Class ;' citing VTsIOM surveys, 215. See, for example,
the survey conducted by the Agency of Regional Political Studies in 1999-2000: while
the majority of respondents did not trust a single institution, labor unions were less popular than any other organization . Nezavisimaya Gazeta , 5 May 2000.
90. Gordon and Klopov, Poteri i obreteniya, 218.
91. Ibid. Interestingly, a survey conducted by the All-Russian Center for the Study of
Public Opinion in February and March 1998 found that respondents placed trade unions
at the very bottom of institutions that " ' have influence" (with only 4 percent of those surveyed saying unions had influence ), but when respondents were asked "who ought to have
influence," unions carne in second place (below the intelligentsia ), with 64 percent saying
unions ought to have influence . Obscítaya Gazeta , 23-29 July 1998, as translated in The
Current Digest of the Post-Soviet Press 50, no. 29 (1998).
92. Cook, "Trade Unions."
93. Gordon and Klopov, Poteri i obreteniya. The numbers of those stating a willingness
to strike were higher among workers i.n industry , construction , transport , and communications, and one would expect the survey numbers from the mid - 1990s to have increased
by the late 1990s, when overall support for strikes in surveys roce.
94. Chetvernina et al, Sotsial 'no-trudovye.
95. Given constraints of space, we have not explicitly discussed " identity resources,"
such as ideologies , discourses, and symbols that justify union goals and encourage solidarity. The problem of worker identity and the lack of alternative ideologies in the postcommunist setting is a rather obvious and yet profound problem facing labor in these societies and líes beneath many of the other obstacles discussed here . For a fuller discussion
see the introductory and concluding chapters to Crowley and David Ost , eds., Workers
after Workers' States: Labor and Politics in Postcommunist Eastern Europe ( Lanham, MD:
Rowman and Littlefreld, 2001).
96. Ross and Martin , "European Unions"
97. These are examined more fully in Crowley , "The Social Explosion That Wasn't:
Labor Quiescence in Postcommunist Russia ," in Workers after Workers'States.
98. J. Kennan , "The Economics of Strikes ," in Handbook of Labor Economics, vol. 2,
ed. Orley Ashtenfelter and Richard Layard (Amsterdam : Elsevier Science , 1986), 1091137; David Soskice , " Strike Waves and Wage Explosions , 1968-1970 : An Economic Interpretation," in The Resurgence of Class Conflict in Western Europe Since 1968, ed. Colin
Crouch and A. Pizzorno (New York : Holmes and Meier, 1978).
99. The figures are rounded . "Obshchestvo : B Soviete Federatsii nashli credstvo ot
zarabotok," Kommersant-Daily, 19 December 2001.
100. Thus Gordon and Klopov ' s argument that Russia's traditional unions have progressed from "pseudo-unions " to "half-unions " over the last decade suggests a linear if
drawn-out transition , and likewise Zaslavsky finds optimism in that Russia's "market economy has not yet started to function ` normally,' but is moving in this direction ." "The Working Class," 225.
101. Clarke, "Labour"; Cook, "Trade Unions "; Ashwin, Russian Workers ; Crowley, Hot
Coal, Cold Steel.
102. Javeline , Protest and the Politics.
103. Gimpelson and Lippoldt , Russian Labour Market.
104. This section draws from a number of sources, most of which are found in Crowley,
"Explaining Labor Quiescence in Post -Communist Europe: Historical Legacies and Comparative Perspective ," Central and Eastern Europe Working Paper Series , Minda de Gunzburg Center for European Studies, Harvard University , May 2002; and Crowley and Ost,
eds., Workers after Workers' States.
105. In this case , at least, legacies act less like a burden that becomes lighter over time
than like a switching mechanism that clones off some opportunities and opens up others.
This would suggest further that there is still some utility to be wrung from the muchapplied concept of path dependence . On the application of path dependence in that way
see Paul Pierson, "Increasing Returns , Path Dependence , and the Study of Politics ," American Political Science Review 94, no. 2 (June 2000). For an interesting and critical discussion of the notion of legacy, see Grzegorz Ekiert and Stephen Hanson, Capitalism and
Democracy in Central and Eastern Europe: Assessing the Legacy of Communist Rule
(forthcoming).
106. Marc Morje Howard, The Weakness of Civil Society in Post- Communist Europe
(Cambridge : Cambridge University Press, 2002); Marc Morje Howard , "The Weakness of
Postcommunist Civil Society," Journal of Democracy 13, no. 1 (Jan . 2002).

Comprehending the Weakness of Russia`s Unions

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